Track and Field Announces Hiring of Taryn Sheehan
July 01, 2011 | Women's Cross Country
July 1, 2011
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - University of Louisville track and field coach Ron Mann has announced the hiring of former Cardinal student-athlete, Taryn Sheehan, formerly known as Taryn Gibson, as an assistant coach on Friday.
"We wanted to bolster our distance program to prepare for the NCAA Cross Country Championships when we host it in 2012," Mann says, "and Taryn's addition will certainly help us from that standpoint. This also provides us with an opportunity to build the Louisville family with coaches who have been a part of the program in the past and are familiar with Louisville and our supportive community."
Sheehan joins the Louisville staff after spending the past two years as an assistant coach for Western Michigan's women's cross country and track and field teams. At the 2010 MAC Cross Country Championships, Sheehan directed the women's program to a sixth-place finish - its highest since 2006 - with its first cross country all-MAC honoree in two years. That season, the squad also posted its best finish (15th) at the NCAA Great Lakes Regional Championship since 2004. Individually, she guided Samantha Tomerlin to a 26th-place finish at the race, the best mark by a female runner in more than 10 years.
In two track seasons, she coached individuals to three league titles (indoor: 3,000m; outdoor: 800m, 1,500m) and had athletes set three school records in multiple distance events (DMR, 3,000m steeplechase and 10,000m). In 2011, her distance runners scored the most points in school history at the league championships under the current conference configuration. During that season, one athlete qualified for the NCAA East Preliminary Rounds in the 10,000m.
"When we were driving in this week and we crossed the river [into downtown Louisville], I felt like I was home again," Sheehan says. "I loved my time here as an athlete, and I started my coaching career here, too, as a volunteer. The chance to come home and take the women's team specifically to another level is an opportunity I'm very excited about."
At Louisville, Sheehan competed for one year (2007-08) on the cross country and track and field teams. On the cross country side, she competed in six races and was a scoring runner at each meet. She had a career-best finish of sixth at the Mid-America Opener and ran at the BIG EAST Championships and the NCAA Southeast Regional. On the track, she set the indoor school record in the 3,000m, completing the race in 9:39.04. She also holds the fifth-fastest indoor time in the 5,000m, with two top-five outdoor times in the 10,000m.
Prior to competing at Louisville, Sheehan competed at St. Francis (Pa.) for three years, where she earned all-Northeast Conference honors three times in track (2004, 2006-07) and twice in cross country (2004, 2006). She set the Northeast Conference outdoor record in the 10,000m, charting a time of 36:18.38 in 2006. That mark is currently the school record, and she is listed as having the third-fastest time in the 5,000m. Academically, she was named to the NEC Honor Roll from 2005-07.
She is married to Ryan Sheehan, who was a two-time outdoor track All-American in the 10,000m and finished as high as sixth in the event in 2004.
For all of the latest information on Louisville cross country and track and field, log on to uoflsports.com, or, for up-to-the-minute updates, follow the team's Twitter account at www.twitter.com/louisvilletrack.
